SMEs consider the Swiss location to promote success. However, they see considerable locational disadvantages compared with abroad in terms of production costs. For combating these locational disadvantages SMEs primarily focus on new technologies and digitalization.

A majority of Swiss voters believe Brexit will bring economic benefits and feel that Switzerland will have a stronger bargaining position vis-à-vis the EU. Party affiliation and age play a negligible role in this assessment. These findings come from a survey conducted by gfs.bern on behalf of Credit Suisse.

The financial services industry is undergoing sweeping changes worldwide, and competition between international financial centers has grown fiercer in recent years. In order to preserve and even improve the competitiveness of Switzerland as a financial center, substantial efforts are required from banks as well as from policymakers. As in 2012 and 2014, Credit Suisse is presenting a study on the Swiss Financial Center.

The Swiss economy is likely to expand by 1 percent in 2016. While construction is likely to move sideways, we expect a subdued performance for hotels and catering as well as industry as a whole and a slight improvement for retailing.

A small, Alpine country that lacks raw materials, Switzerland has had no choice but to continually reinvent itself over the centuries, developing alternative sources of income, such as agriculture, tourism and its service sector. What’s the secret of its success, and how long can it continue?

For more than ten years now, the Swiss real estate markets have enjoyed parameters that can only be described as a kind of paradise – continuous rises in prices and rents, booming demand, and low vacancy rates against a backdrop of low interest rates. But in recent years, there has been an accumulation of indications that other, less favorable times lie ahead. Because real estate investors are no longer able to source easy returns just like that. In the future, investors will increasingly have to rely on their own services in order to generate the hoped-for returns in real estate markets.

Although it is now more than a year since the removal of the EUR/CHF exchange rate floor, export-oriented industrial sectors in particular such as the mechanical engineering, electronics, and metals industry (MEM) and hotels and catering are likely to suffer this year from the strength of the Swiss franc.

After years of debate, the new "Swissness" law is set to take effect in 2017. However, major objections are being raised at the last minute. We explain the point of the new law and who will benefit from it.